the goat & the dragon*

I know people who can’t work unless they have a solid goal. “I want to be able to do a hundred pushups without stopping for rest.” Or “I want to become a marine biologist.” So you train for that, but if you don’t make it you’re never satisfied. And if you couldn’t decide what you wanted in the first place you’ll never leave the harbor at all. I used to think that way. “I want to be a black belt.” Great - what kind? The kind that barely scrapes by? Who checks his training at the door when he leaves the kwoon? Or the kind you can’t help but want to emulate, in both his physical skill and attitude toward others? Or, “I want to master this system.” The system is a continuum. It cannot be mastered, not truthfully. So instead, I tried to set my goal is simply this: practice. I will practice, and I will enable myself physically and mentally to attain whatever it is I want, whenever it presents itself.

I wrote those words back in June. I don’t know what was on my mind at the time. I’m not even in the same headspace now as I was in June. Clearly some things, the important things, don’t change. Training doesn’t fail you. Sometimes I look back at all these old words, the quotes, the pages upon pages of musings and I feel like snapping all my journals shut, piling them atop one another, and being done with talking about all this. Because I can sum it all up, nice and neat, merry Christmas - training doesn’t fail you. Training doesn’t fail you. 

Here’s a better quote, from Wong Kiew Kit’s The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu. 

None of true practice is wasted. Drifting off the breath is just as important as staying with it. It's learning. The mistakes teach you. And there are all kinds of mistakes to make, all kinds of delusion to explore. There are a million ways for the mind to drift off. The more you experience it drifting off, the more you will understand about staying with it. if the failures don't happen now, they are going to happen later. In practicing you learn to approach problems differently, directly, and intuitively. You learn to trust your intuition. Because that is what is going to get you through the difficulties of life. Not logical, sequential thought.

Wonder is one of the wildest qualities on the massive scale of human experience. Just a pinch of it stops time. The world halts. Your eyes fill. You become, for a small time, everything you truly are. - Victoria Erickson

The Raven. My youngest student, so emotional, but not in the way most little boys are. Affected, that’s a better word. In a span of ten minutes traveling from impassioned to unglued, and back again. Training is hard, he’s learning. I don’t like this, he’ll tell me, as I fold my arms and order another repetition of the same painstaking drill. It’s not for me, I wish I could tell him. We aren’t training for battle, or to fight. We have no great war to win, save the one we all fight alone every day. To give up, or not to give up. I don’t like this, he says, those ocean eyes full of tears. He can go so much further. He doesn’t know what pain is. Often, on those lazy Saturday afternoons after I’ve spent my weekly half-hour teaching the boy, I feel the sting of having failed him.

But then I catch him here, between the trailer and the stage where he, I, and our fellow demo team performed Kung Fu at a local festival. The first to find it, this secret spot, he clambered up and watched the performances in quiet awe, so emotional, but not the way most little boys are. I don’t like this, he says, when we train. We train hard, but not nearly as hard as we could. Oh, but Raven, I know you see why it has to be. Because you watch with a critical eye and though you may not say it I know you see what training does for you. And even if you don’t, I do. 

That was you last weekend. 

That was February. Seven months nearly to the day, you tested for your yellow sash. I was so proud, but of course, if you’d performed like that last weekend, I’d have been just as disappointed standing there watching you as I was proud seven months ago. Not disappointed in you, but in me. Yes, it’s your body and your mind, it’s your sense of wonder that keeps you impassioned. But it’s on me to fuel your fire with high standards and training that, sometimes, you won’t like. I don’t like them, either, when my instructors put me through them. But that’s what gets you from A to B. 

This past weekend my Kung Fu school was out at a local festival for a demonstration. This is nowhere near the complete performance but I wanted to spotlight the kids! Sometimes it’s hard to see how much they’ve improved from day one until you’re analyzing footage and trying to splice a video together. Super proud of my little kung fu brothers and sisters. 

Thursday’s #latenitekungfu session was pretty low-key. Monk was fresh from the dojo where he’s been cross-training in Judo with Tiger and in unusually high spirits. Being a white belt again has activated a long-dead joy that I think most martial artists cease to feel once they’ve trained for a while. There’s just something unique about being a beginner that’s hard to replicate. 

What I like is the feeling of no expectation, Monkey says from his carved-out little corner of the world. I enjoy my chats with him but miss the constant companionship of when he lived with Dragon and I, just one door down from me. Little has changed, I imagine. I know he sits there in his swivel chair with his feet pulled up underneath him and sips something lukewarm while he studies, indulging my questions and poetic musings. 

The cloth around your waist doesn’t tell a faithful story about your skill, he laments. I love that I can make errors without feeling like I’m supposed to be a representation of the school or style. I had forgotten what it was like to watch a demonstration and not know where to start. Judo is making my body move in ways I haven’t moved before, just as Kung Fu did when I started. I feel my knowledge expanding at a rapid rate, which is the greatest feeling there is. 

On the mat last night Monk talked me through some basic Judo, as a preface to beginning my own cross-training adventure. At his dojo, everyone is offered a free trial class, and if things go well enough, I might end up their newest judoka. 

For an hour we grappled. I felt the full effects of being a beginner again as we rolled: the awkwardness of the movements and the elation of success. Afterward I lay sweat-soaked and exhausted on the mat, and Monkey quizzed me on what we’d gone over. 

Kesa gatame, he started with the easiest one. We’d spent the majority of our time drilling it. “Head-in-arm position,” I replied. Ippon seoi nage. “One-arm hip throw.” Osoto gari. “That’s the sweep.” Uchi komi. “Practicing setting up.” Neiwaza. “Grappling.” Randori. “Throwing, but you can only grab from the waist up.” Hajime. “Begin.” Good. 

Three years ago I met him, and he wasn’t The Dragon then. I wasn’t The Goat. We were just students, he barely two weeks into his journey as a new instructor at the kwoon and me, barely anything at all. I like to think his kung fu journey and mine were meant to collide, because were it not for my random assignment by the head instructor of the school to study under The Dragon, a lot of my life now would simply not… be. 

Today’s his birthday, and I don’t want to be verbose, but I do want to take the time to talk about The Dragon, the real Dragon. 

The Dragon is my instructor, and my friend. He has always been like an elder brother to me, and in three years of training together, living together, and growing on each other (which wasn’t always easy), I can say with fair certainty that Dragon is most everything I am not. He is gregarious and outgoing, he sees the best sides of bad situations, and he invests himself wholeheartedly in the people he cares about. But he’s not without insecurities. Nobody is. And in some ways we’re a lot alike. I bet he, like me, imagines sometimes that there’s an ideal version of himself buried somewhere within him. A perfectly strong, disciplined Dragon, a machine. And it frustrates him, because he isn’t that, not right now. Not yet. I know the feeling. I think that one day, if I work hard enough, I’ll unearth the Real Goat, and she will kick ass and take names and nothing will push her off the track of success. She’ll be fighting fit, a formidable opponent, and in the upper echelon of kung fu students. 

As if, somewhere, there’s a Real Dragon, waiting for the prison doors to open.

But to me, The Real Dragon is the one I’ve always known. He is not defined by his state of being, but by that relentless, radiant energy he projects. He is a good man who makes others feel worthy and important. He raised me into this martial art, latched onto my childlike wonder of it, and reminded me of things that will never stop being important. You don’t give up, you don’t let negativity rob you of the passion God gave you. You respect yourself enough to take care of your body and your mind. You don’t crumble, you don’t kneel, you take beatings but never allow yourself to be defeated. You dedicate yourself to progress for the sake of it, because what are we if we aren’t a little better of a person every day we’re blessed enough to wake?

Maybe there’s another Dragon somewhere, waiting. Maybe there’s another Goat. I don’t think so. When it’s time to make hard decisions, or face trials, I’ve always seen the real Dragon fly out, like a bird from a cage. That’s the Dragon I know. The one who doesn’t back down, or fold up, or crumble. The friend, one of the best ones I’ve ever had. 

Happy birthday, Dragon. You’re my hero, and you always will be.

two months ago, approximately.

I really couldn’t tell you how I did it. I get hit in the face so often in kung fu that it’s not completely far-fetched to assume that’s how I incurred a corneal abrasion that (coupled with inflammation of my eyelid caused by allergies) would fail to heal for weeks. 

last Saturday. 

When I woke in the morning, I made the terrible mistake I’ve made numerous times over the last few weeks - I ripped the scab off the cornea. Long story short - your eyes dry out when you sleep, and if you have a corneal abrasion, a scab of new eye skin forms over it and if you wake and open your eyes sans any lubrication of the eye itself, the eyelid will rip away the scab. I’d done this previously numerous times by mistake, about once a week on average. Every progressive time, the pain lasted a little longer. But Saturday - Saturday set a record: the pain (and blurry vision, tearing, and congestion) did not stop for eight hours, lulling briefly for about four, and then picking up before I gave up and went to bed that night. 

last Sunday.

When I awoke Sunday morning, I was careful not to “rip” open the scab, and for about fifteen minutes there was no pain at all, then seemingly of its own accord, my eye became hot and scratchy and did not stop plaguing me all day long in waves. During one lull Dragon and made a trip to the grocery store for dinner ingredients. I wore my sunglasses inside and he made blind jokes that kept me in good spirits.

the ER. 

It was at my father’s insistence (and panicked fear of vision loss) that I asked the Dragon to drive me to the emergency room. I felt bad - we’d just settled in for a night of TV, video games, and a planned mac-and-cheese with-sausage dinner (mmm!) that he graciously put on hold. At the ER, we weren’t given any reason as to why the scratch hadn’t healed on its own but I was given painkillers and drops. The painkillers made me nauseous and kind of loopy.

the ophthalmologist. 

I didn’t even know that optometrists weren’t medical doctors. Jeez. The ophthalmologist was able to tell me that the reason the eye had begun to hurt continuously was due to a swelling of the eyelid - as the swelling increased over the last few weeks, it reached a point where every blink was chafing the wounded skin of the eye, causing perpetual pain. He placed a contact on the eye and gave me more drops. 

penance. 

I should have gone sooner, much sooner, to the eye doctor’s for help with the scratched cornea. I actually did go see an optometrist a few weeks ago - that’s how I knew it was a corneal abrasion, but I didn’t seek further treatment, figuring I could bide my time and it would get better on it’s own. I’m really quite blessed and lucky it didn’t get infected in my procrastination. 

So, per my (questionably) good judgment and at both Dragon and Monkey’s insistence, I am sidelined from training for the time being - no kung fu, no gym for one week, when I head back to the ophthalmologist to have the contact removed. It’s only Wednesday morning and it’s been rough. I miss my passion and my family at Shaolin. Still, I’ll try to make the most of the week, catching up on rest, keeping up with medication, and maybe hashing through a Netflix series or two. The Dragon did promise that if my eye was 100% irritation and fatigue-free by Thursday afternoon I could attend class. 

What he doesn’t know, however, is that as of last night I’ve been feeling a bit of a swelling in my tonsils, which is an indication of a potentially encroaching infection. When I get home, I’ll be downing some immunity booster, gargling salt water, and putting myself to bed. Hopefully I won’t be sidelined for too long. 

Dragon: You could have had this fixed weeks ago if you weren’t such a baby about people sticking things in your eye.

I know it’s about the shittiest pop-up in the world, but it’s the first one I’ve ever done in my whole life, and I am so glad I had the foresight to set up the camera. I only intended to record the practice - which, so far, has amounted to getting a little airborne but never even getting my feet underneath me - for the sake of seeing what I looked like as I spent the next few weeks trying to achieve the pop-up. 

Late nite kung fu. Following some key advice I had received from The Dragon about kicking straight up into the air, I had managed to get my feet underneath me about fifteen minutes into practicing the motion. After a dozen similar attempts, I excitedly called Monkey over to my side of the school to show him. He stood there, hands on his hips, quietly analyzing my efforts - quintessentially so. I made my attempt, my feet meeting the floor just before my back crashed back down. Expectedly, he forwent praise in favor of a suggestion. Do a sit-up. Blankly, I obeyed. Now do a sit-up in the air. 

I smiled. I smiled because Monkey’s suggestive critique is nearly always foolproof. Whether or not my body can keep up physically is another matter. But a sit-up? I can do sit-ups all day. 

all my wolves begin to howl, 'wake me up, the time is now' body aches, I'm bound in chains, but there's a fire in my veins and there's a revolution coming 

On tonight’s episode of Late Nite Kung Fu...  Monkey and I spent the majority of the two-hour session working on nothing but kicks and sweeps. After a brief warm-up jog and some practice with diving shoulder rolls (and, of course, Monk’s patented walking stances), we moved into butterfly kicks, which are honestly not even in my repertoire. At most, I’ve dabbled in them when directed to do one or two as a class exercise, but I have never been formally instructed on how to do one. Monkey relayed some tips he originally gleaned from Tiger: basically, despite that we train traditional Shaolin kung fu, do some wushu! Then, fighting a pulled hamstring, he demonstrated the butterfly kick. As a disclaimer, Monk himself is not proud of the result and assures me he’s done much better in the past. I, however, still watch the clip with a childlike awe and all of his self-deprecation will never take that away from me. (Eat your heart out @pathofthemonkey!) I mean, come on, he was injured, and he still pulled this bad boy off.

Lessons learned: 1) Doing a wushu power stance makes you feel like a complete badass.  2) In wushu, Monkey explained, everything is tight, everything is powerful. There’s not a loose muscle or appendage in the stance, minus relaxed shoulders. The chin stays up, shoulders back, and the face is ready and still.  3) #2 can be applied to traditional kung fu, for sure! I have always struggled with keeping my chin up, for one. 

When I mimicked his stance, Monkey shook his head and proceeded to point out an umpteen number of ways to improve it. It continually amazes me the level of conscientiousness required to make this art the best it can be, down to making sure the tension is held in the right parts of the body. 

After sweeps and spinning crescent kicks (which I’m not going to embarrass myself discussing until I have some good progress down!) Monkey and I took a look at the curriculum boards, where everything a student is required to know is printed for their reference. 

Lessons learned: 1) I think too much. Progress is not made in the mind, but in the performance of the technique. My hang-up is that I don’t want to perform the technique until it’s perfect, as if I could somehow listen to and absorb all the information about that technique, let it marinate in my brain, and just spit out a golden example of what it is supposed to look like. I mean, if it really worked that way, we’d all be fucking beasts. Haha. I wish. 

Monkey: How are your side kicks? Me: I like to think they’re pretty good. 

I think you all know how that story ends.  Tonight was pretty lax. Monk’s injury meant he couldn’t train as hard as he’d have liked and I was in a chipper mood so there was a lot of laughing and joking, up until he tightened up and became stricter for the sake of getting things done. My side kicks elicited Monkey’s quintessential grimace, which I am well-accustomed to. He proceeded to break down the technique and after ten minutes of me missing the mark, I was sent to the wall to practice static holds while Monk made minute adjustments to my posture. 

My calves ached horribly, sore from this week’s leg day at the gym. By this point, the backs of my knees and quads also felt like hot Jell-O, protesting against every twist and trembling with the weight of my lifted leg. My obliques were forced to engage and felt as though they’d been gathering dust for months. These just weren’t things I was conscious of before, I’d realized with a sickened feeling in my gut. Subdued, I shut my mouth and focused on trying to power through and not put my leg down. 

When he finally ordained that I could rest, I retook my position on the mat thoroughly chastened, frustrated, and eyes watering from the pain, but resolute. About ten failed attempts later, something clicked, and as I extended my side kick I angled my torso in the direction of the strike and pulled my shoulder back, engaging the oblique. Monkey immediately came to life, praising the attempt. That was the one, he brightened. Again. 

I felt such a swell of relief but it let it be sucked down with my frustration and exhaustion, trying to keep my mind focused only the task itself. I am reminded of a Zen saying that more or less goes: Your mind is like a house. Leave a door open. Let emotions come and go, just don’t serve them tea. 

Lessons learned: 1) Progress for the sake of progress.  2) Training with your friends is fun. But a lot more gets done when you get serious.  3) 

I’m still internalizing this one. I understand that it means the work you put in to accomplishing something elicits a twofold response. First, the work itself costs you - it costs you time, energy, pain, frustration, and suffering. That’s eating bitter- what you are willing to do to accomplish something is directly correlated to how badass you’ll be at that thing when the work is done. (By the way, the work is never done.) Even literally, practicing your kung fu warms your body, taxes your muscles and bones and both weakens and strengthens you. But when you’ve mastered something, the warmth from that is the reward. That’s the satisfaction of knowing it’s under your belt. It’s basking in the glow of a fire you built. It’s having run the gauntlet and emerged on the other side intact and better off.  In five years, I may very well be an instructor at one of the most up-and-coming premiere Shaolin kung fu schools in the country. Dream big, right? We’ll see what happens. More on that later. 

Thanks for chilling with me, guys! Until next time - 

blood, sweat, I'll break my bones 'til all my scars bleed golden my name's forever known bang bang, won't stop ‘til we're legend

This song is hogging my attention right now. Continuous loop. Every now and again you hit on a tune that just gets you pumped, you know? Unfortunately, my “playlist” is a bunch of songs scattered across different apps. Stuff I thumbsed-up on Pandora, Shazamed, or downloaded on Apple Music... probably should consolidate that. 

shout-out to @pathofthemonkey for turning the big two-five today!